Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page.

PAGE 4A THE JACKSON HERALD WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 2021 Opinions “Private opinion is weak, but public opinion is almost omnipotent. Henry Ward Beecher Mike Buffington, editor • Email: Mike@mainstreetnews.com Jefferson needs investment in its downtown As the Municipal World Turns: Last week saw two ma jor moves in upcoming local elections with the withdraw al of two high-profile candidates from races. In Jefferson, Mike Martin withdrew from the District 2 city council race fol lowing ongoing con troversy between him and the council over his downtown tap- room. In Commerce, Stacy Rucker withdrew from the Ward 1 city council race after facing a blis tering attacked from an opponent who argued that she didn’t live in the city and so couldn’t run for any council po sition. • •• Of the two withdrawals, the issue in Jefferson has broader ramifications for the long term while the Com merce situation seems to have been more limited in scope. That's because Rucker apparently didn’t live in Com merce. She used a city address on her candidate qualifica tion form, but that was for a house owned by the family of incumbent councilman Archie Chaney. Candidate Andre Rollins challenged Rucker on her can didacy and a healing was slated last week to air the issue. Rucker withdrew before that hearing happened. Rollins appeared to have evidence that Rucker had vot ed in Banks County as recently as last January. Others also indicted that Rucker really wasn’t a Commerce resident. Rollins, who currently sits on the city planning com mission, wasn’t just upset with Rucker, he was also upset with city officials whom he said should have never let her become a candidate in the first place. Still, that situation will likely fade in the coming weeks, but I’m not sure the situation in Jefferson will go away quickly. • •• That’s because Martin’s withdrawal from the District 2 race really doesn’t address the underlying issues. City officials believe they have been accommodating to Martin’s business, a taproom on the South Square. The city changed its alcohol ordinances to allow his business to proceed when it became clear that it wouldn’t meet the food requirements and it gave him special use permits for events he hosted. But after several area businesses complained about the impact of those events on the town’s limited parking, the city began to pull back. The matter then became a heated back-and-forth with what officials said was a lot of misinformation on social media. For his part, Martin said city officials were “liars” and had misrepresented him. The situation quickly became a heated mess. Last week, Martin pulled out of the race, saying he wanted to spend more time focusing on his family. • •• One irony of this is that Martin gave the city what it had long wanted — an anchor business downtown that would draw crowds of people. It was that kind of business the city sought to develop when it re-did the town squares and added wider side walks for outside dining. At one point, the city even ran off a small church from meeting in a building at the South Square, fearing it would prevent a restaurant that might want to serve alcohol from locating in the area. But while city officials have long wanted a big draw for downtown, they were unprepared for the demands Martin’s business made on the city, from allowing food trucks to using more of the area for outside events. The city scrambled to create new codes to deal with all of that, something that obviously began to wear thin with officials who have other issues in the town to deal with, too. • •• Still, the overall issue points out two big weaknesses in Jefferson. First, is a lack of parking. That’s been an issue for the last two decades. The city could do like Braselton has done and barrow money to build a parking deck, but so far that idea hasn’t gotten much energy. Unlike Braselton, Jefferson leaders don’t like risk-taking, or spending money today for a fu ture return on investment. But the truth is, surface parking isn’t going to solve Jef ferson’s problem, now or ever. Without a parking deck, downtown will suffer in the long run. The second problem is the lack of a city greenspace to hold events. The only thing downtown are streets and parking lots, all of which have to be shutdown for July 4th and other special events in the city. There are some areas where it might be possible to cre ate a town green, but so far that doesn't appear to be a priority in the town. The situation calls for Jefferson to undertake some large capital improvement projects if it wants to keep down town viable. The town will never attract the kind of bou tique restaurants or businesses it desires without parking and without a place to hold events. • •• So why doesn't the city do that? I’m not sure. Jefferson has long done large projects in spurts and stops, never consistently and often with little forethought. Jefferson has been very successful in a lot of ways: It has built a strong industrial base of businesses and indus try: it has a strong school system that lures people to the community; and it has a relatively low crime rate, some thing that’s important to those looking to move into the town. Despite that success, the city has often floated with little clear direction. Some years ago, I wrote a column that likened the town to a ship without a rudder. Although improved, that still seems to be the case. For one thing, the city has never really found its footing with its city manager form of government. While it has greatly improved its financial performance and account ability over the last decade, it hasn’t gotten the kind of strong leadership it needs on a day-to-day basis. Coasting. That’s about the best word I can find that de scribes the city right now. Some like that status quo approach. A lot of citizens probably don’t want the town to undertake large capital projects and the debt they create, fearing it will impact their taxes. A previous mayor said as much during his ten ure, a position that was mostly supported by the council. Still, Jefferson’s downtown is at a critical juncture. Un less there is some new investment, some new energy, the downtown will eventually fade. If Jefferson aspires to be like Swanee, or Lawrenceville, or Braselton, or Clarksville, places with vibrant down towns, pedestrian spaces, and restaurants, it will have to make some hefty investments. If not, it can watch as suburban growth of strip malls and new shopping districts surround the community and the downtown becomes a place of empty storefronts. Mike Buffington is co-publisher of Mainstreet Newspa pers. He can be reached at mike@mainstreetnews.com. The Jackson Herald Founded 1875 Merged with The Commerce News 2017 The Official Legal Organ of Jackson County, Ga. Herman Buffington, Publisher 1965-2005 Mike Buffington Co-Publisher & Editor Scott Buffington Co-Publisher & Advertising Manager Alex Buffington Assistant Editor — News Angela Gary Associate Editor — Features Kyle Funderburk Sports Editor Postmaster: Send Address Changes To: MainStreet Newspapers, Inc. PO Box 908 Jefferson, Georgia 30549-0908 Web Site: www.JacksonHeraldTODAY.com Email: mike@mainstreetnews.com Voice: 706.367.5233 Fax:708.621.4117 (news) Periodical Postage paid at Jefferson, GA 30549 (SCED 271980) Yearly Subscriptions: $45 / $40 for seniors Let’s stop arguing about vaccine Dear Editor: We recently acknowledged the 20th anniversary of the deadly attacks by ter rorists on 9/11. Almost 3000 brave and innocent Americans were killed. As of September 14, 2021, almost 664,000 Americans have been killed by Covid. That means that less than 1/2 of 1% represents the number of people killed on 9/11 compared to America’s Covid deaths. Banks County has less than 26% fully vaccinated citizens. Georgia is at 54%. Now one in every 440 Georgians has died from Covid. Over 22,000 have been killed in our state. What would our response be as Ameri cans, if some foreign enemy caused death to 664,000 of our citizens? Would half of us be arguing about whether to respond to such an attack? Wouldn’t we all be driven by a sense of patriotism and loyalty to de feat that enemy? What will it take for us as Americans to come to the understanding that unless we do something , this virus will continue to kill thousands more Americans? When will it ever end? Denial, mistrust of sci ence and failure to get safe vaccines will lead us to the path of destruction. Lastly, given the situation at our hospi tals, I hope none of us have family mem bers or friends who need elective or emergency surgery but can not have it because almost all of the ICU beds are full of unvaccinated citizens. We owe it to our children to give them a fu ture free from this deadly virus and new viruses/diseases yet to come. Sincerely, Cliff Jolliff Maysville I just want us well By Zach Mitcham I’m excruciatingly tired of two things right now: covid and our political divide. We are a nation with both literal and fig urative sickness — an actual vims that has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives and a partisan cultural breakdown that is crip pling us. I just had covid. Maybe I’ll see some ef fects over time — I wouldn’t put anything past covid; it’s a biological wildcard — but thankfully, it was mild. I had the Pfizer vac cine in the spring, and I had a low-grade fever and some pretty bad sinus pain for a couple of days recently with the virus. Then it passed. I was so glad to have had the shots, given the numerous sad stories and straggles I’ve heard about many who avoided them. There is no “expert” on my resume on any subject. And I certainly don’t know the mechanics of the vaccine. I don’t know the science of planes either, but I still get on them when needed. If I need medicine, I take it. I try to know what I can about the possibilities, but I don’t know everything — and never will. We live in a world of collective knowl edge stacked on top of other collective knowledge. None of us have the full picture of all the innovation that has had to happen for us to enjoy our modern life, with its cars, bridges, computers, dentistry, etc. Science and human innovation surround us at every turn. The clothes you wear right now have a multi-layered story behind them, a fabric of agriculture, manufacturing and distribu tion, each with their own development over time. Just think of how awesome ice cream is in terms of human history. A large Dairy Queen hot fudge sundae is $3.39 and a tasty treat, though nothing we think much about, but put that in Biblical times and it would have seemed Biblical to the taste buds, like an impossible cold gift from heaven. I guess what I’m getting at is this: we are focused on the vaccine right now be cause of our politics, not our science, which achieved something truly worth celebrating in response to this global challenge. We tend to be selective in what science we ap preciate and what science we hate, depend ing on our own feelings about the world. That’s me, too. I have all kinds of worries about where technology is leading us. But this vaccine fight, it’s not about the science at this point. I say this because the science is holding up in the hospitals. The people who have had the vaccine aren’t getting as sick as those who haven’t gotten the shots. That’s just an indisputable fact. A new variant could make the vaccines less effective. That’s true, too, but the vaccine has hugely reduced the risk of hospitaliza tion and death from covid. And these vac cines already have saved many lives. That’s a point that doesn’t get made enough. We focus on many negatives, but there’s a huge positive: many people haven’t gotten des perately sick who might have otherwise without the shots. I include myself in that, and thankfully, I didn’t have to live through that alternate reality three weeks ago where I’m covid-positive and not vaccinated. It might have been the same, or it might have been much worse. I’m thankful not to know. Think about it: the chicken pox vaccine is not political, neither is the polio or tetanus shot. Small pox was a recurring scourge of human history. No more, though. The poli tics surrounding those vaccines didn’t tank the efforts. I wonder, if a vaccine was devel oped that eliminated or took the teeth out of cancer, would we tear ourselves apart polit ically to deny it, or would we line up to get it? Would even a cure for cancer collapse now in our political angst and fractured re alities? We are certainly a nation in a collective crisis regarding power. And in this climate of vicious politics, my body/my choice is a kind of battle cry on both left and right regarding bodily autonomy. Abortion is a war about life itself, and what value will take precedence in our society. It’s fierce and emotional, no matter your position. Vaccines have now fallen into the same kind of political realm: Can the government dictate what happens with my body? That’s treacherous territory politically on both is sues. And just as it’s true that an abortion is not just a medical procedure, but also a decision of yes or no on another life, that same argument goes in the vaccine debate: remaining unvaccinated is not just decision about your own body; your decision affects others. If you doubt the science on this, then consider how many non-covid medical is sues are getting pushed aside for all the un vaccinated filling up the hospitals. It’s never a good time to have a heart attack, but man, it’s particularly bad now. I can’t help but wonder, what if covid was a country, not a disease? Say China at tacked us and killed more than 660,000 of us. That would be a war of epic proportions. If the U.S. government said, we need you to take X action to help us defeat China, would you? Basically, if China attacks us, is the U.S. a “we” or a “me” nation? I sup pose covid is different than this. It certainly is visually, but I don’t see much difference morally. Do you? If so, I’d like to hear that explained. I also think of the phrase, “we’re all in the same boat,” which is pretty true figuratively. But then I think about an actual boat and rough water. What if we’re in a real boat in troubled water? We need to get to the other side. You’re rowing in the direction of safe ty, trying to push us through the danger. Is it my right to row the opposite direction, leav ing us stranded in the middle of the raging water? Hey, it’s my body, my paddle. If you’re unvaccinated, I might have ticked you off. But that wasn’t my aim. During all this craziness, and all this in formational chaos. I can understand all kinds of emotional reactions to our weird, bad days. I also understand being fiercely against being told what to do. No one en joys that. I don’t either. But unless covid declares itself a Repub lican or Democrat, we need to treat covid as a completely apolitical problem. Because that’s actually what it is. And we have vac cines that help humans, not just Democrats, not just Republicans. And maybe you can dismiss this as me being political. Or maybe, you can recog nize that I don’t like being sick, I don’t like seeing people sick, and I don’t like seeing my country so sick. When we have reme dies, I just want us to take them. I just want us well. Do you? Zach Mitcham is editor of The Madi son County Journal. He can be reached at zach @ mainstreetnews. com.